A Mac Fanboy's Dream Finally Came True!

Look, it's uh it's no secret that I'm a

bit of a Mac fanboy. So, trust me when I

say that for the last 17 years, I have

read tens of thousands of comments

telling me that Macs are objectively a

terrible value. And for a long time, I

didn't have a great retort because while

it has been my subjective opinion that

Mac OS and Apple hardware is vastly

better than the competition, objectively

those critics were correct. were correct

because from the entry level all the way

up to mid-tier workstations, Apple now

has the best computers objectively

dollar for dollar. And it's not close. A

Mac is the best deal in computing. What?

I never thought I'd be able to say that,

but this this isn't some masterful

gambit by Apple. It's largely, but not

entirely, dumb luck. So, let's talk

about how we got here, where Apple

somehow became a great deal, how Apple

uniquely weathers this component storm

that's driving all this, and also where

things go from here.

Yeah. So, you may have heard there's

some uh there's some is going down with

memory, specifically DRAM, the stuff in

your computer and phone. In the last 6

months, memory pricing has gone

absolutely faking bonkers. For example,

a 32 gig DDR5 kit that cost around $100

in mid2025 now runs over $400 bucks.

Single 16 gig dims are pushing $200.

That's right. DRAM prices have surged

over 175% on average since this time

last year with some chip categories

spiking nearly 300% from prices found

just three months ago. It is said that

tech gets cheaper over time, not more

expensive. So, what the heck is going

on? Well,

artificial intelligence and specifically

the absolutely insatiable demand for HBM

or high bandwidth memory used in AI

training hardware. Now, to be clear, HBM

is not the same stuff that's in your

laptop. It's a far different and more

expensive product, but all memory shares

the same wafer fabrication process, and

it's a zero- sum game. Every wafer

allocated to an HBM stack for an Nvidia

GPU is a wafer not making it into the

LPDDR on your next laptop. Samsung, SKH

Highix, and Micron, the three memory

oligopoly members have all reallocated

manufacturing capacity towards these

high margin trendy AI chips. They want

money and that has cratered the supply

of commodity less expensive DRAM. data

centers now consume over 70% of top tier

memory chip production and IDC forecasts

that demand growing uh roughly 35% in

2026 against only a 23% supply growth

meaning that uh yeah it's it's math guys

shortages are expected to persist

through at least early 2028 and until

that time memory will get ever more

expensive than it already is

so then what does that mean for you and

me, the folks buying computers. Well, it

means the PC prices are going up. And

you might be thinking, well, they

already have. Yeah, they're going to go

up more. Dell has already hiked their

rates by 15 to 30% across its commercial

lineup. And their COO literally said,

quote, "We've never witnessed costs

escalating at the current pace before,

ever." Uh, for context, Dell was founded

in 1984.

So, so things are not good right now. HP

is slated to rise prices starting this

spring and small outfits like Framework

with its very little leveraging power

bumped its DDR5 prices by 50% in

December and then again later that month

and then again last month and then again

last week and they've all but promised

it will continue to happen. Everybody by

necessity is passing those costs on to

you. Well, everybody except for Apple.

In what world do we live now? Apple has

been charging $200 per 8 gig memory tier

since, and I kid you not, 2016, over a

decade. They have not lowered prices

even once. And if you're a naive little

Apple idiot that's about to say, "But

Quinn, that was using DDR3, and now we

have amazing DDR5 today." I would point

you to this chart that shows that

regardless of memory type, it is

consistently and dependably decreased in

price over time. Apple's RAM is not

special. It's just severely overpriced

and has been forever. Well, I guess it

was overpriced because now Apple's $200

upgrade to go from 16 to 24 gigs of

memory is cheaper than buying a 16 gig

stick on the open market. Dell is

currently charging $700

for the same 16 to 32 gig upgrade on

select models that Apple charges $400

for. That sentence would have gotten me

laughed off the internet just a couple

of years ago, but it is true today in

this weird thing that we live in called

the world of AI. And look, the reason

behind this isn't some galaxy brain

forward thinking. It's just that Apple

is buying fundamentally different

product through a fundamentally

different process. Dell, Lenovo, HP,

they're all assemblers. They generally

buy commodity DDR5 DIMs on quarterly

contracts at prices that track the spot

market. And so when DRAM spikes, their

cost is I mean they spike in lock step.

But Apple is different. They design

their own silicon and they buy custom

LPDDR packages since it's all on die

directly from Samsung, SKHEX and

sometimes Micron on multi-year

agreements which are traditionally

negotiated when memory is cheap. It's

not that Apple buys more memory than

Dell. They don't. It's that they're

buying a different kind of memory

packaging and with locked in pricing

through different arrangements. And that

distinction is currently worth billions

of dollars. Apple has absolutely

enormous purchase obligations to their

suppliers and manufacturing partners.

People don't get this. Like Apple's most

recent annual report suggests 56 billion

worth owed to their suppliers with

nearly all payable in just 12 months.

And that's only possible because they

sit on like $145 billion in cash. People

do not understand the scale at which

this company operates. I mean, it is

Apple that consumes 25% of the global

smartphone memory market all by itself.

And so locking in these long-term supply

agreements isn't just prudent, it is

like a necessity. And it is a staple of

Tim Cook's strategy that Apple has been

running since the early 2000s when Apple

unprecedentedly in 2005 prepaid $1.25

billion worth of flash uh for the iPod

to just lock up the market because there

was such high demand and Apple knew they

needed it. They wanted to weather the

storm. This is Tim Cook's strategy, man.

He has always viewed the supply chain

and supply chain deals as competitive

weapons. And well, the result of that,

last month, Tim Cook told investors in

the quarterly meeting that, oh yeah, no,

the memory market thing that that's had

minimal impact on our December quarter

margins. And Apple guided a 49% gross

margin for the current quarter, which is

nearly double what PC OEMs operate at

normally. And right now they are not

operating normally because the market is

imploding. Like Apple has some of the

lowest component costs in the market

because they manufacture at insane scale

and they purchase in insane quantities

that almost nobody else can afford. It's

no longer that they make a ton of money

because their hardware is so much more

expensive than the competition. It

isn't. Like wake up. It's 2026, man.

Analyst Mingchi Quo puts it bluntly.

Apple's playbook is clear. Use the

market chaos to their advantage. Secure

the chips. absorb the cost and grab more

market share. They'll make it back later

on the services side. Now, whether or

not you find that admirable or dystopian

is up to you, but the practical result

is that Macs have not gone up in price

yet while everything else has. Now,

before this starts sounding like a love

letter, let me talk about the part that

Apple still is screwing you on, and that

is storage. Because while RAM pricing

has accidentally reached market parody,

Apple's SSD pricing remains comfortably

in the realm of highway robbery. Despite

Nand also seeing price increases, I

mean, it costs $800 to go from 256 GB to

two terabytes on a Mac Mini. A Samsung

990 Pro 2 TB SSD retails for double what

it did last year and it still costs less

than half of what Apple charges. Find

another option and you're pushing four

times markup. And SSD is a bit of a

misnomer anyhow since Apple's SSDs are

literally just bare nan chips on a PCB

unlike what you'd find on a full retail

SSD with a controller and DRAM cache and

supporting components. So it should be

even crazier. Look, there are like niche

third party upgrade kits that continue

to prove this point even more. You can

get a bespoke two TBTE kit from Expand

to Mac Mini manufacturing in low volume

for about half the cost of what Apple

charges with identical nan and the same

performance.

guy. Speaking of things, Apple

overcharges for their $19 polishing

cloth. Unfortunately, I bought several

of these because I found out a few years

ago that they are very, very good

microfers. They're just too small and

too expensive. So, introducing Copeland

Supplies Cloth Pro Max. This is mine. I

made this. This costs a dollar less. Do

you like this custom packaging? A dollar

less than Apple's polishing cloth, but

it's way bigger. and I worked with a

material scientist spending five figures

to develop what I believe is truly the

best triple blend cloth on the market.

This ain't daddy's microfiber. It is

fantastic. It matches or frankly in my

opinion exceeds the performance of

apples in many circumstances. It's

cheaper. It's big. And you can save 10%

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domestic shipping using the link below.

Uh please buy my merch.

So here's the reality. Apple's RAM

pricing is temporarily fair. storage

remains extortionate. And this new

duality is important to recognize

because it helps us define where value

actually lives within Apple's lineup.

For over 12 years, from 2012 through

2024, Apple sold entry-le Macs with just

8 GB of base RAM, far past when it was

acceptable to do such a thing. I mean,

even the $1,600 M3 MacBook Pro from 2023

came out with eight gigs of base memory.

What the heck? That finally changed in

late 2024 when Apple made 16 gigs the

minimum across all Macs, even legacy

models at no price increase. Effectively

a $200 value bump driven partly by Apple

intelligence and requiring 16 gigs to

run their models, but also partly of

years being competitively embarrassed, I

suppose. But regardless of why they did

it, the result of 16 gigs of memory is

that for the first time in over a

decade, the base model Mac didn't

require a paid upgrade at the time of

purchase to make it usable for just

about anyone. And that changes the

entire value calculus because Apple's

pricing has always been most competitive

at the base configurations. And so that

brings us to the two Macs that I think

make the strongest value case in Apple's

lineup right now. And they sit at

opposite ends in the lineup, but still

in the base configuration. And a

surprise to nobody. Yeah, the M4 Mac

Mini is the value king. It was a great

deal at $599 when it was new and RAM

could be found cheap. And now given that

it can be found as little as $400 some

places. And in a world where every other

computer has increased in price, it is a

bananas good deal. $400 for a Mac with a

10 core M4, 16 gigs of unified memory,

Thunderbolt 4, and in a 5 in x 5 in x 2

in enclosure that at idle sips just four

watts from the wall. And I know we talk

about Apple silicon and efficiency all

the time, but that last number really

matters more than you might think in a

low-end configuration like this. Fellow

YouTuber Jeff Gearling measured that the

Mac Mini was 32% more efficient than any

other ARM single board computer that he

had ever tested and in a different

Galaxy from x86 consumption. And a Mac

rumors user similarly documented a 33

watt load average on an M4 versus 600

watts on an Intel 13700 K and Nvidia RTX

3080 PC with comparable export times

using the same project in Premiere Pro.

So for daily computer users that's going

to translate to real money like $50 to

$100 in electricity savings alone every

year. Great. I've said it before and

I'll say it again. The M4 Mac Mini is

one of the most incredible computers

that Apple has ever made. And I really

only think that it's bested by one other

machine, the most underrated Mac that

Apple has sold since 2020, and that is

the entrylevel 14-in Pro Skew MacBook

Pro. Today's Space M4 Pro MacBook Pro

config comes with a fantastic SOC, 24

gigs of RAM, a still small but at least

usable 512 gig SSD, and it can often be

had for as low as 1,600 bucks, $400 off

of its retail price. And if you want the

higher bin chip and a one TBTE SSD, B&H

recently uh had the $2,200 list price

Mac on sale for just $17.99. And that

includes all of the MacBook Pro things

that we have come to love about the

MacBook Pro that make it best-in-class

and the things that have made it so

since 2021. A fantastically bright 120

Hz 1600 nits miniledd screen and

excellent keyboard and trackpad with

best-in-class battery, all contained

within a computer barely thicker and

heavier than a MacBook Air. It

outperforms other comparable machines

like the XPS14 in nearly every category

while starting out at a lower price. The

secret is found in these standard issue

configs. Never build a custom Mac

configuration if you can help it because

not only do you not get the retailer

discount on the back end, but you're the

one pushing up the average sales price

on Apple's balance sheet to make up for

all of the lower margin based tier

machines. Even if you ignore the average

lifespan of a Mac, which is typically

longer than that of a PC, and you ignore

the resale value, which is usually

higher, and ignore the operating system,

which like have you seen Windows 11

lately? Oh my gosh, it's horrible. The

reality is that no single machine in

Apple's lineup is a bad deal right now.

And a few options like that base Mac

Mini and M4 Pro, MacBook Pro remain the

best value machines in the entire

computing industry. A Mac from Apple,

the best deal. Like what?

But this gravy train may not last

forever because Apple isn't fully

insulated from market realities. They

can absorb component inflation and take

a hit to their average selling price for

a while, but they can't eat those costs

indefinitely if the memory market

doesn't correct. What they can do,

however, is obuscate price increases

inside of product refreshes. And

conveniently, that's almost certainly

what is about to happen. You see, all

the rumors suggest that Apple is

planning two MacBook Pro updates this

year, which sounds crazy to me, but

those are the rumors. First, M5 Pro and

M5 Max models could arrive as early as

March, or at least so the rumors

suggest. It was said that they'd arrive

in early February, but um yeah, that

didn't uh happen. These refreshes will

be spec bumps only. The same chassis,

the same display, same everything except

faster silicon. The second refresh,

yeah, this is the one that matters. A

full system redesign with the M6 Pro and

M6 Max chips targeted for the end of

this year, quarter 4, 2026. After 5

years, this update is reportedly

significant. First, we're getting to

Tandem OLED display using Samsung's

eighth generation panels. Secondly, it

is rumored to have an even thinner

chassis. Okay, Johnny. Third, the

dynamic island will be replacing the

notch. So long, see you. Didn't care for

you. And I still don't really want a

dynamic island there, but whatever. And

then

can I just I got to just uh

Yeah, we're getting a touchcreen. the

first for any Mac. And by the way, the

reason I'm excited is because, not that

I really want a touchcreen, though I do.

I've been using an iPad Pro a lot as my

main computer and I constantly reach to

touch my Mac and I'm like, "Oh, it

doesn't do that." And everybody's like,

"Oh, nobody's going to do that. Apple

will never do that." Remember when Steve

Jobs says, "Nobody wants to reach up and

touch their computer." And for 5 years,

10 years, 15 years, how long has it

been? I've been saying, "What are you

talking about?" They make it. It's

called the iPad. They're going to put it

on the Mac eventually, believe me. And

then Mac OS Big S came out, Mac OS 11.

And I'm like, "There's a whole new

version number. This is when it's going

to happen. They've spaced everything

out. It's all huge. this is designed for

tap targets. And then it didn't happen

for years and years and years and years

and everybody said, "You're stupid." And

I said, "Wait, they're combining all the

OSS into one OS and everything's going

to be like continuous and really great."

And then that didn't happen, but it

actually kind of did because of Apple

silicon, but not really. And then

everybody still said, "You're stupid."

Well, guess what, idiot? Now I'm

laughing. I was only kind of wrong.

What else are the MacBook Pros? Oh,

yeah. Um, M6 chips built on TSMC's 2n

process.

Samsung has reportedly committed $3.1

billion to the OLED production line for

this machine alone. And that leads us to

the catch. Mark German reports that it

is likely to come with a much prior

price tag. These new MacBook Pros, that

is estimates range from $300 to $500

more expensive than current models. Now,

the M4 iPad Pro kind of set this

precedent a couple of years ago when it

had a $200 price bump across the board

when it moved from LCD to tandem. And

critically, I think that this redesign

gives Apple it gives Apple natural cover

to quietly fold in component inflation

alongside the OLED premium. Customers

will attribute the higher price to the

shiny new display and the touchcreen

rather than the memory crisis shirt

charges that are very real. Though, I

just kind of thought maybe the reason

we're getting two MacBook Pros in the

same year is because they'll keep them

both around. The M5 with the old form

factor that stays at the old price and

then there's a new fancy one with a

fancy pants display and OLED and

whatever, but it's way more money. in

then, you know, that's a good idea. I

should probably write that down and put

that in my script. It's worth noting

that Apple actually has not raised the

prices of the MacBook Pro since 2021, a

span of time during which we've all

experienced enormous inflation, tariffs,

and now surging component costs. And

while Apple benefits from the fact that

building today's MacBook Pro is cheaper

than building launch day's MacBook Pro,

because parts always come down in cost

as they age, that buffer does have its

limits. Sooner or later, the bill comes

due and the flashy redesign with a

tandem oled and a touchcreen is the

perfect vehicle to make you want to pay

more without feeling like you're

subsidizing a memory crisis. But before

any of that, u something is happening

right now. Apple just announced that in

early March they're inviting members of

the press, not me, to a hands-on event,

hands-on events around, sorry, to

hands-on events at a few locations

around the world. The same kind of thing

they did with the iPad Pro a couple of

years back. This

Please buy my cloth.

This format tells you a lot. These are

products that Apple considers notable

enough to warrant in-person impressions

of, but not quite deserving of a full

keynote. Expect a short video or two

from Apple, some hands-on time, and

embargo synced coverage flooding your

timeline. One product almost certainly

making the appearance is going to be the

new M5 Pro and Max MacBook Pros that we

just talked about, but yet you don't

bring people out across the world to see

those. The other product rumored I think

is far more interesting in the context

of this video. A machine that has been

whispered about for years and would

fundamentally reshape the bottom of

Apple's laptop lineup. And that is a

lowcost MacBook. Not a MacBook Air, not

a MacBook Pro. A MacBook powered not by

an M series silicon chip, but by the A18

Pro. Yeah, the same chip in the iPhone

16 Pro. Now, before you recoil in

horror, consider what the A18 Pro

actually is. It's a sixcore CPU, six

core GPU SOC built on top of TSMC's very

good 4nometer process. Not only is it

more than capable of handling what most

people actually do with their laptops,

but it favors itself quite well against

the M1 in multi-core performance, and

it's vastly better in single core

performance. And that's a chip that I

think has aged like fine wine and will

only continue to. The key to using this

iPhone chip is the rumored price around

$600.

600 bucks for a Mac laptop that's less

than most mid-range PC laptops and slots

in just above Chromebook killing

territory. I would expect a MacBook Air

display like probably sands notch old

school with maybe thicker bezels to

separate it from the Air though it may

be closer than we expect because the

Air2 is also long overdue for a display

update. It's not good anymore. It has

been for a lot of years. The the Air

display is a disappointment. It's the

reason I don't use one and the reason I

hate the Air and wish the regular

MacBook would just come back. And by

that, I don't mean the new one, but like

the old one that was really, really

thin. And this is not that because it's

cheap. Sorry. But do you know what? No,

I refuse to give up on this dream

because the introduction of this new

low-end machine would conveniently give

Apple room to nudge the Air's price up

as well. Certainly alongside a refresh,

maybe with a gorgeous display and a

super thin design. maybe make it, I

don't know, an error since it'll no

longer be the uh entry point in the

lineup because we'll have the Crapbook.

As for RAM on the Crapbook, well, my

bold and probably wrong prediction is

this: 12 gigs of memory. Hear me out.

The A18 Pro with the iPhone 16 Pro

shipped with 8 gigs, but Apple's likely

to bump that up in 2026 for a laptop

workload while still trying to keep cost

below the 16 gig floor of the M series

Max. So, you go look at a $500, $600

laptop. Many of them have 16 gigs, but

not all of them. A lot of them are still

on eight, and 12 is a frankly a rarity,

but Apple's already doing weird stuff.

They've got 24 on the MacBook Pro. Like,

I think it's possible. 12 gigs isn't

ideal in 2026, but at $600, it doesn't

need to be. If the Mac Mini is any

indication, we'll also see that this

thing will hit retailer discounts pretty

quickly. And that could push it to below

$500 within just a few months from

release. A sub $500 Mac laptop in a

market where everybody else is raising

prices. Feel like a crazy person. and

what's happening. Now, if you'll permit

me just a little bit of space to vent

because I know everybody's going to talk

about this. Despite the obvious

Chromebook comparisons, which will be

made on release, this machine will not

conquer education. Almost certainly not.

And Apple knows this. They already lost

that war in the late 2010s when Macs

were super overpriced and they were

trying to push the iPad in classrooms

instead of like real computers. And and

co co just cemented that loss as

elementary and secondary schooling

shifted almost entirely to web-based

platforms. And Google's tight

integration with instructor's Canvas and

Google Classroom and the broader

ecosystem of web first education tools

just gave Chromebooks an insurmountable

lead that Apple never seriously

attempted to claw back cuz I think they

just knew it was game over. But at $600,

this new MacBook doesn't need to beat

Chromebooks in K through2 to be a

massive success. It can absolutely

compete with higherend Chromebooks and

mid-range Windows laptops. you know, the

machines that are purchased in volume by

corporate buyers and college students

and anyone who needs a real computer but

doesn't need a powerful one. And this is

weird because on one hand, Apple has

never historically pursued low margin

customers. But on the other hand,

they've also never had high market share

on the Mac and they desperately want it.

More Macs sold means deeper ecosystem

lockin, more iCloud subscriptions, more

Apple TV Plus trials, more App Store

revenue. If you can pursue that growth,

however small, profitably, and if

there's one thing that Tim Cook knows

how to do, it's to do this kind of stuff

profitably by maximizing supply chain

and make it uh, you know, seemingly low

margin businesses seem like a success,

then why not do it? And I think that

that is what is exciting. That's the

through line here. For 17 years on

YouTube, I've been told time and time

again that Macs are overpriced. And for

most of that time, it's been true. And I

knew that. I just didn't care because I

liked Mac OS enough to pay the premium

or not. I mean, I was the Mac Hackintosh

guy, so I didn't always pay, but the

ground has genuinely shifted. Not

because Apple suddenly became generous.

Let's not kid ourselves. They still

charge $200 for 256 gigs of nan flash

that cost them maybe 15 bucks, but

because the rest of the industry got

dealt a terrible hand, and Apple just

happened to be holding a royal flush of

long-term supply contracts and

vertically integrated silicon and more

luck, strategy, whatever you want to

call it, it doesn't matter. the result

is the same. The reality is that right

now today, a Mac, a Mac is the best

value in computing. Now, whether that

lasts, well, that's going to depend on

memory markets and OLED panel cost, plan

cost, and how long Apple can resist the

urge to pad their margins on the next

generation of hardware. But for the

moment, for right now, for the first

time in my lifetime, the fanboy math, it

actually checks out. Thanks so much for

watching, and as always, stay snazzy.

Buy a cloth.

Listen, it's so good.

That's quality.